Google is Trying to Tell You Something, Are You Listening?

Google has put so many awesome tools at the disposal of bloggers and small business owners that at times, it's almost impossible to keep up with them all. Google wants you to succeed with your online endeavors but let's face it, we all know that they are getting more then their fair share out of the deal too.

Yet, as bloggers and webmasters, when we stop to think about all the perks we get from Google, (outside of Google Chrome) two things should stand out in our minds above the rest:

Google Analytics.

Google Webmaster Tools.

We should all be listening to what Google has to say

Most of us already know the importance of using Google Analytics and the wealth of information we can discover from checking our stats. Remember how diligently we would check our stats when we first started our websites? I don't know about you, but I was there every single day, and some days I would look 3 – 4 – 5 times! Back then I was just hoping that I would get 100 visits on one single blog post.

As time passed, and we started using social media sites like: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Pinterest etc., we got distracted and spent less and less time checking our stats or even thinking about Analytics.

In some ways that was a good thing.

It's not good to be obsessed with checking stats all the time.

But let's not get distracted by those “shiny objects” and forget about why we came here in the first place.

We all need to set aside a time – maybe once or twice a week – but no less than once a month, to monitor our progress with those two important tools I mentioned earlier (Analytics and Webmaster Tools).

Two Google Tools for the Price of One

What do I mean by “two tools for the price of one”? Well since they are both free Google resources, you know I'm not talking about the actual cost. I'm referring to the amount of time you're going to save by checking your progress in one place rather than two. Isn't that nice of me? You're quite welcome. 🙂

“What's the real benefit of having data from these two tools in one place. How does this help me?”

The short answer is this:

It will be much easier for you to listen to what Google is telling you about all of the FREE traffic it's sending your way!

Next, I'll give you a more detailed answer starting with a screenshot from my “Search Queries” report in Webmaster Tools.

I added the red numbers and arrows to help illustrate my point:

Using this report from GWT, I need to add up all the #1's, #2's, #3's, etc. to figure out which post is getting the most attention. After doing some homework I'd see that #3 has the highest number of queries and impressions in Google search. The problem with this method is that we're only looking at a small snapshot of the page, therefore a lot more “homework” is necessary on my part in order to determine which post is actually driving the most of the traffic from Google search.

Now let's look at the break down of the “Landing Pages” found in the Search Engine Optimization Report of Google Analytics.

It's so obvious now that I didn't even need to draw any arrows this time! It's crystal clear that the page on my blog with the highest number of impressions in Google search is the one at the top of the list: How To Get Your First 2,000 Twitter Followers (many thanks to a guest post from my pal Amrik Virdi from Monetize Blogging).

More Benefits of Listening to Google

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I use the data from this Landing Page report to determine placement for my AdSense ads.

Once I started “listening” I developed this super simple strategy to determine which posts to place AdSense units on (because they get the most targeted Google traffic) and as a result, my AdSense earnings began to increase significantly.

I'm sure you'll find other uses for this new found information. Try sorting the “Landing Pages” report by the “Clicks” column (instead of sorting by impressions as shown above) and you'll have a much clearer picture of the content on your site that is most popular with your Google traffic. Use data from the Search Engine Optimization reports of Google Analytics in the following ways:

Write guest posts that will compliment those top landing pages on your blog

Daniel Waisberg's book on Google Analytics Integration

Integrating Webmaster tools data inside Google Analytics is just one simple step you can take toward reaching the goals you set for your site.

Daniel Waisberg from Online Behavior has worked as a Google Analytics Certified Partner for over 4 years. In he latest book, he explores more options for integration of Google tools into Analytics. The book is titled Google Analytics Integrations – Centralizing Digital Marketingand it is available on Amazon. In the book he shares insights and instructions for connecting AdWords, AdSense, YouTube and even FeedBurner to Google Analytics.

I hope you are going to take action and integrate Webmaster Tools with Analytics, or maybe you have done it already. Let me know what you think about combining these two power house tools from our friend Google!

I'm a blogger, podcaster, YouTuber and social media diva (or Social Media Veteran if you like the way that sounds better). True story: I started blogging by accident when I actually thought I was "subscribing" to my daughter Nicole's first blog. Since then I'm committed to helping others avoid all the mistakes I've made along the way. Get one-on-one coaching and exclusive perks when you join my community on Patreon!

Comments

great post Ileane , i have always been looking at my GWT and always try to find out good keywords with good impression. Thanks for sharing this idea with your readers , and looks like i got a keyword to compete with, ” how to gain followers on twitter” LOL.

Hi Saad, thanks for your positive feedback on the post. I was really surprised to see that the Twitter post is getting so much traffic from Google. I hope you find some nice surprises in your Google SEO Landing Page reports too.

Hi Ileane
I can’t believe that I have missed this in the past. I love to use both Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools to learn about my traffic and to find out where I can improve. This is something all bloggers should do, if they don’t already have done it. Thanks again for the tip Ileane 🙂

That’s the way it is. New bloggers get into this world and then do random stuffs instead of following some basic guidelines and tips which are essential. I do hope they find this article and benefit from this.

Google is trying to say things and its too often and my ears are beginning to hurt. Now I just ignore what bigg boss has to say and will concentrate on other means and resources. For one of my sites I have completely removed analytics and webmaster tools and loving it.

Shalu, it is something like the glasses irritates and you threw them away, but how are you tracking the performance of your site? Don’t you care where the traffic are coming and where are they taking actions?

And one more thing, the integration of Analytics from the very first day of your blog is very important. Though not you, in future somebody might be interested to get those data. I recently sold one of my website (seommotips.com) and it was the Analytics data, Google PR and Alexa ranking that convinced the buyer. Who knows in future you’d like to sell some of your websites and there is nothing to show?

Suresh, of course I care where the traffic is coming from but there are good alternatives and that is why I removed it. I don’t think one has to rely on these to make progress. Obviously they are good tools but there are others ways to look at stats. It also depends on personal taste. I might again go back to it.

Hi there! I’m happy to hear that you are already taking advantage of this integration.

I’m really surprised to hear that you sold SEOMMOTIPS! That was a great blog and I hope the new owner shows it as much care as you did. btw – did you update your user profile here on the blog to make sure the correct blog link is present?

Ileane, you mentioned that you were surprised to find the Twitter post ranking so high. I’m wondering if any of these top three posts are what you want to rank for on your site. Since most of my income is from my services and not adwords, in the past, I religiously followed analytics and made a huge effort to rank for WordPress training. I’ve given up trying to get my whole site to the top for that. I’m being outspent in ads 10,000:1. Instead, I’m shooting to get to number one on related topics. Right now that happens to be alternatives to FeedBurner. Before that it was a social share widget that was having issues. I’m finding it particularly useful to write authoritative posts on trending topics in related fields. It’s bringing in a much more diverse audience to find my services. Analytics lets me know what to write more about, and more importantly, what services to highlight on those posts.

I’ll tell you a little story that I have shared in my podcast on an episode a couple of months ago: When I started paying really close attention to GWT, I noticed that one of the posts here called “the benefits of using an iPhone” was getting a ton of traffic from Google. I absolutely did NOT want to rank for this particular post. Partly because I don’t have a smart phone and no plans on getting one, but even more importantly, I’m no longer in touch with the guest author who wrote the post which means comments aren’t being responded to. So I set out on a mission to do something about this – even though I had no idea what to do at the time….
Then one day as fate would have it, I was approached by another guest author who was able to do a follow up post called the Top 10 Best iPhone Apps for Bloggers.
Now this post is much more on point with the focus of this blog and the traffic is slowly migrating away from the older (outdated) post and transferring on to the newer more appropriate one. My thanks goes to Ahmed Raza who saved the day for me on that one.

MaAnna, this is exactly why I pay such close attention to these stats now and I encourage other bloggers to do the same.

Now as far as the Twitter post goes – any post that is related to social media is certainly a win for this blog and in this case I also heavily promote a site called JustRetweet. If you take a look at the post you’ll see I embedded a video I did for JustRetweet in the post using the LeadPlayer plugin. LeadPlayer is helping me get more views on YouTube but it’s also getting more sign ups for my email list.

One of the goals I’m currently working on is to embed relevant videos in each one of the top 25 posts that Google is showing favor to and I’ll let LeadPlayer or Viewbix do the job of getting more subscribers and YouTube views at the same time.

Thanks for that question and for taking the time to stop by and check out the post!

Hi Ileane!
Thanks for such a nice post.. I was all there, but didn’t have the insight that you found out.. I integrated Google WebMasters Tool and Analytics long back, but didn’t know how to get maximum benefit from it. Your post guided me in the right direction.

Also one more question w.r.t the below quote.
“Once I started “listening” I developed this super simple strategy to determine which posts to place AdSense units on (because they get the most targeted Google traffic) and as a result, my AdSense earnings began to increase significantly.”

If you are using WordPress, how can I put AdSense ads, only on the popular posts? Is there any plugin you use?

I’m happy that you learned a tip and took action! You are surely on the right path.

No plugin!! Please don’t use any plugins to put AdSense on your blog. I was doing that about a year ago, but I learned from my friend Lisa Irby that I wasn’t getting any performance reports when I used the plugin (in terms of best performing ad units and sizes).

Just go to your AdSense account and get the code for the size ad you want. If you’re not sure how to do this, let me know and I’ll do a video for you.

Good job George. I don’t use SEM Rush because I have Market Samurai. Like I said it’s not good to obsess over stats and since I’m already checking Analytics, Webmaster Tools and Market Samurai, I think SEM Rush would be overkill.
But thanks for letting me know how it works.

Ileane – I am bit skeptical to be honest about using only 2 sources to get your data from.
I like to combine all there is:
For indexed pages I use Google and Bing.
For backlinks research I use GWT, Ahrefs, Majestic SEO, Bing and Alexa.
For onsite tips – WooRank.
The issue with using only tools provided by Google is that you are dependent completely on what they will give you.
I really appreciate your article – great writing!

Google has always provided us with fantastic tools and will continue to do so. A lot of folks just don’t know how to use them properly. Social media is frequently seen these days as the new generation of SEO as well, and sites like Facebook & Twitter are pretty much the only ones online that Google worry about.

Hi Ileane, I love using the two. I use them mostly for my retail sites and recently learned that many keywords had changed in popularity. It was an eye opening experience. I have since started using excel spreadsheets to keep on top of them better. It can be overwhelming to learn it all at once so I try to focus on one area at a time with these tools. (One thing not mentioned often is about those that spend a lot of money on adwords – I see another comment referencing that. I find that on the retail side. One in particular is advertising everywhere- so some keywords I cannot compete but instead I go toward the long-tail keywords )
The book “Google Analytics Integration” looks wonderful. I may be purchasing that one soon or asking Santa for it. Thanks so much for the informative post and love your examples.

Lisa, at work we have the ecommerce reports in Google Analytics turned on for our website. I hope you are using those on your retail sites. I think Daniel has some information on his blog that can help you set it up if you haven’t done it yet.

If you are using AdWords you gotta get that book! He actually sells each one of the integration reports separately so if you just want the AdWords volume it runs around $5. Well worth it! Daniel works closely with Google so he knows what he is talking about.

Hi Ileane,!
You mentioned that you were surprised to find the Twitter post ranking so high. I’m wondering if any of these top three posts are what you want to rank for on your site. Since most of my income is from my services and not adwords, in the past, I religiously followed analytics and made a huge effort to rank for WordPress training.

I have given up trying to get my whole site to the top for that. I’m being outspent in ads 10,000:1. Instead, I’m shooting to get to number one on related topics. Right now that happens to be alternatives to FeedBurner. Before that it was a social share widget that was having issues.

I’m finding it particularly useful to write authoritative posts on trending topics in related fields. It’s bringing in a much more diverse audience to find my services. Analytics lets me know what to write more about, and more importantly, what services to highlight on those posts.

Great stuff! Detailed and well-put. Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools are simply invaluable tools and the fact that they’re free makes it all the more amazing. I suggest turning on the email notification feature in Webmaster Tools so that whenever Google tries to tell you something, you recieve an email instead of having to check the dashboard for new notifications.

Hi Veer Modi, I also had the accounts connected but just recently started taking advantage of this feature. It really is interesting to see that when I removed AdSense from my sidebar and from appearing on every page I started earning more since I use it only on the top pages getting Google traffic. I hope someone else tries this too and gets good results.

Thanks Ileane for this post, it was so entertaining i wished it never ended. I am definitely one of those bloggers who are obsessed with the numbers (You know what i mean), and this post has opened up another dimension to the whole idea and i cant wait to implement the ideas from here immediately. Thanks again.

Great post Iliene,
I agree with you, I think keeping up with Google analytics can make or break someones website. How will you know who is reading or how many people are visiting.. If you don’t know whats popular and whats working for you. Without knowing that, you will most likely fail.

Hi Tanya, one of the best lessons I learned about using Google Analytics comes from Avinah Kaushik – he says that “not using GOALS is a crime against humanity”. Of course he was exaggerating, but it wasn’t until I learned how to set up Goals in Google Analytics that I really began to see the power of what Analytics can do for a website.

Th is really a great post Ileane. One funny thing about me is i have the analytics and i also have the webmaster tool integrated to my blog but to be frank, i don’t use it because i don’t really know how to. I have grab a few things with your explanation and i’ll surely implement it to get a better result. thanks

Oh girl, aren’t you smart! I had no idea you could connect the two accounts but I tell you what… I’m heading over there right after I finish this comment and connect the two.

I check Google Analytics much more then I ever check Webmaster tools. I just find the Webmaster tools site not as user friendly. Okay to be honest with you, Google Analytics isn’t always the friendliest either but I would much prefer going to one place to check all my stats instead of two. This just makes it that much more convenient.

Thank you Ileane for sharing this. Awesome tips. Hey, you have a great week okay! Enjoy the family..

You know what I did – one day I just decided that I was going to go through as many reports as I could in my Webmaster tools until I found something interesting. Once I realized that I could see my “Author Stats” and find out which posts I got my Google Authorship for, it was like something clicked in my head and I felt like I was getting somewhere.

Now, I go into GWT at least once a week just to see if I got Authorship for any of those new posts I published. That alone makes the trip worth while. 🙂

I don’t use too much analytics tools besides Google Analytics. I quickly realized after I began doing my traffic case studies that having proper analytics was going to be a necessity, especially for myself and my audience to get an accurate picture of my traffic stats.

I don’t really monitor my Google traffic as you know, but my analytics has been great for showing me where most of my social media traffic is coming from. I’m not the best at dissecting all the details of an analytics report and I’d like to learn more specifics about them in the near future.

Thanks for sharing this post with us. I appreciate you taking the time to break it down.

Really great post : Google Always try their level hard to keep Genuine publishers a step ahead of the spammers ( exactly what I got from Google webmaster help forum ).

Analytic and webmaster tools are the most essential and most advanced tools present in the market. Google analytic also offers the premium version with complete data update within every 15 minutes and lots more.
Considering the webmaster tools, its all in one feature packed tool. You have so many to explore and optimize…

Apart from them, google also offers many other web services like blogger, maps, picasa, and most importantly : Google plus : An innovative social media site.

I use webtools sometimes, but haven’t used analytics. I probably don’t use webmastertools enough. The one tool I’ve been using lately to see how likely one of my new blog posts will be seen is the keyword tool for google adwords. I use it to see how competitive my chosen keyword or phrase is and how likely I’ll be able to compete with others. I really like that it shows me how many monthly searches there are for my chosen keywords.

I need to get over to Google Analytics to find out all the other juicy details Google will give me. Thanks.

Hi Ana,
Google Analytics has so many hidden features that I find myself getting lost from time to time. This is one feature that is pretty straight forward without a lot of fluff – you just need to know how to find it.

Excellent post Illeane. I agree with your response to Hadley and Staurt’s comment. Google+ is a strong 3rd (Search Plus Your World update, authorship impact on SERPs, Google+ Local are few key drivers for Google+) on the list and YouTube a 4th. Video marketing is still one of the most under-utilized tools in the Internet marketers toolbox. Thanks for sharing.

As usual, you have plotted out another way to get the most out of my blog! There are many tools to keep up with and this is a great way to find out how to monetize your posts properly. Thanks, by the way, for helping me on the Facebook deal too.

Hi Ileane,
Google Webmasters and Analytics are two great tools to know everything about how Google sees your blog or website. Though I integrated them a long time ago, I haven;t spend much time on them.

Though after this I will using them more wisely to get something better out of them. Thanks for these awsome blog tips.

If we use these two tools properly then we it’s very easy to know more about about stats, traffic, backlinks, landing pages, etc. I like these two tools very much. Google analytic with Google web master tool is really awesome.

Awesome blogpost. I love Google analytics because it has helped me a lot in improving my blog. If anyone is not listening to Google, they are making big mistake because the only way to survive on the Internet as a successful blogger is to understand what GOogle is trying to make you understand.

Thanks for this excellent post. I am really listening to Google. I used to do a lot of research in both the tools to find out how can I improve my SERP for many of my pages & for keywords.
I think people should spend their time to investigate how their content are doing in search engine.

Woody, I know a lot of people are frustrated over some of the recent updates like Panda and Penguin. The only advice I can offer is to keep building up your content and spend time networking on socila sites like Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube. Also, it’s a great time to start building an email list if you don’t have one already I recommend using AWeber.

Hello Ileane
Your post is very important and useful. Thanks for share this post. Google has put so many awesome tools at the disposal of bloggers and small business owners that at times, it’s almost impossible to keep up with them all. Google wants you to succeed with your online endeavors but let’s face it, we all know that they are getting more then their fair share out of the deal too.

I use both of these tools now. I did not connected both together for a long time, but now I have and I think there is a value in doing so. I had lost almost 80% of m Google traffic die to some problems with the Google crawlers not able to crawl my site properly and GWT helped me fix that and since then, I understood why they both are important tools 🙂

Kumar, that is fascinating! It just goes to show that we bloggers still need to log in to Google Webmaster Tools directly, just in case any warnings are there. We should get email notifications but you know how sometimes things go into the spam folder by mistake. It only takes 5 seconds to double check.

Thanks for Explaining that. I think the most imp things amongst all that google webmaster helps us is about the crawl errors like 404 etc, html errors like Duplicate title and descriptions, search queries and the country selection…

Internet is definitely evolving, so we are very fortunate to have all these great tools to make our lives easier. I have used many times Google Analytics reports to know the areas and topics that raise the most interest to my readers.

Hi Karen, I think you might have been the one who inspired me to check my stats more frequently. I remember back in the day when you would post some traffic reports that really grabbed my attention. I’m so glad you are still rocking the blogosphere!! Thanks for your comment.

Awesome info! I was honestly just thinking about something similar to this other day so, it was almost weird when I ran across this. You would be surprised how many people simply have no idea when it comes to this kind of stuff. Anyway, thanks for getting this cool info out there and I am sure I am not only one who appreciates you taking time to post this for masses.

I am working on both these tools, no one can neglect the importance of these awesome tools. You are absolutely right that we should listen what google say because it is an easy and keen way to get traffic, ranking and business from google search engine.

Ok the end of this article really put it together for me. You can use the information provided to put together a better landing page so that you can increase sales or improve content value for that page.
I use the webmaster tool fairly regular but I haven’t applied a useful approach like this for it yet. Thanks for the post.

Hi Salman, I’m glad I can help! Keep me posted with the insights you find now that you have Google Analytics connected with Webmaster Tools. I’m sure you’ll blog about it soon. Thanks for your comment.

Thank Ileane, Really you are great poster. I always check most important blog through it and try to improve if there is a chance of it. I decide to use both of Google Analytic and Google webmaster tools to increase my traffic and i will try to find out where i can improve. Have you another advice for my traffic?

I’ve connected one of my blog with Google Analytics as well as Google Webmasters Central and getting good stats for it but for my other blog, it is confusing. I don’t know what to do. Should I remove Google Webmasters or Google Analytic or both and try another website monitoring service ?

Hi Alka, first to answer your question – no, don’t get rid of Google Analytics or Google Webmaster tools. In order for me to give you a hand, I need you to be more specific about where you are getting confused. Can you provide some details so that I can try to give you a hand? Also, tell me if you are using WordPress on this blog or not.

Nice! I’m still at the check-my-stats-every-hour stage. Now I’m doing the same thing with my google+ author page too. I think I spend more time doing that than actual research occasionally and have to block myself from going.

Hi ileane
Webmaster tools and analytics are still new to me I am slowly getting used to all the information I know it all seems clear once you understand it all but your article has cleared a few points up for me.

Google Analytics has helped me a lot in managing my blog and traffic.
And even better, Webmaster tools is a boon to all web masters to configure, track and manage their websites.
I love using them to keep up with my blog.

i have been reading your blog since last 3 days and yet still i am hungry..being very honest i would like to say that i am following your every step .i just want to make a blog like yours.Thank you mam .you are my inspiration.

Webmaster And Analytics are the only tools that you need to moniter your blog and improve it over time . There is no doubt in that . and ye I agree to the point that we shouldn’t be too obsessed by the stats (that i am -working on that) but checking them once in a month is also important

I’m a regular user of Google’s webmaster tools checking the search queries, links to the site and html errors. But as you said with social media my time with Google analytics have gone. May be I thought start working on it..thanks for the post.

Hello Ileane I am Brian. I was reading along and see where you stated listen to Google. I have seen a lot of webmasters say this so I can only conclude that there is something to it. Maybe I didn’t understand the article to well, so here is a question. Why should I care what Google thinks about the statistical aspects of any of my sites? How can I benefit from taking time from my schedule to read the complex data statistics they have? Thanks and great blog by the way.

Very interesting blog. Alot of blogs I see these days don’t really provide anything that I’m interested in, but I’m most definately interested in this one. Just thought that I would post and let you know.

About Ms. Ileane

I'm a blogger, podcaster, YouTuber and social media diva (or Social Media Veteran if you like the way that sounds better). True story: I started blogging by accident when I actually thought I was "subscribing" to my daughter Nicole's first blog. Since then I'm committed to helping others avoid all the mistakes I've made along the way. Get one-on-one coaching and exclusive perks when you join my community on Patreon!Read More…